Vanderbilt Hotline: Tuesday Edition

There is a lot of ink spilled over Vanderbilt sports today. With that in mind, I will spare you the inane details of my life (at least for now). Vanderbilt baseball starts their drive towards Omaha tomorrow evening at 6 (5 central) against Vomit Orange. When Vanderbilt takes the field tomorrow however, David Price will not be taking it with them. According to Brett Hait in the Nashville City Paper, Tim Corbin has decided to keep Price on his typical schedule of having one week off between starts. The SEC Tournament is a double elimination affair and will face the winner of Ole Miss/Mississippi State on Thursday. I don't know how I feel about this decision. It is certainly a calculated risk for the Commies. For a little background, Vanderbilt swept UT in Nashville back in April, but won 2 of those 3 games by 1 run and only had a 4-run edge throughout the 3-game series. If they are able to get a win tomorrow without expending their ace, it would seem to but them in a very good position to win the whole thing. If they drop one to UT however, that certainly puts them behind the eight-ball. As I write this though, the more I agree with the decision. You keep Price in his routine and you show confidence in your staff. Vanderbilt, in the past few weeks, has shown that guys other than Price can get it done, there is no reason to think that will change. As Hait writes, CTC will decide between Ty Davis, Brett Jacobson or Nick Christiani to start tomorrow. For what its worth, Nick Christiani had a great outing in long relief against the Vols, throwing 5 innings and only allowing 1 run on 2 hits.

While there is still plenty of work to be done this season, people are still beginning to look towards the future. As Harold Huggins writes in the City Paper, Vanderbilt signed junior Navery Moore from Battle Ground Academy. Mo Patton also has a write up in today's Tennessean, outlining Moore's upside and how he missed much of this past season with elbow surgery. Moore is the second junior to commit to Vanderbilt this week, as Sonny Gray announced his intention to be a Commie on Sunday. Both will make their Commodore debuts in 2009.

While some are looking towards 2009, Coach Tim Corbin began speculating about 2008. Hait double dips in the City Paper, and writes how CTC doesn't think Dominic de la Osa will return next season.

Finally on the baseball front, the SEC announced their season honors yesterday with 6 Commies being so honored. David Price joined Derrick Byars as the second Commie of the season to be named SEC Player of the Year. Better still, Price was one of two unanimous selections, with the other being his coach Tim Corbin. Pedro Alvarez and Dominic de la Osa joined Price on the First Team All-SEC, with Ryan Flaherty making the Second Team, and pitcher Matt Minor being named to the All-Freshman team.

Mo Patton's feature of the game delves into the women's golf team's NCAA Tournament efforts. While I am not the biggest college golf fan, this is a very good article. As Patton points out, this is a format and course Vanderbilt should be comfortable with, especially with Kristen Svicarovich leading the charge. It's worth mentioning that Kristan is smarter than me, and probably smarter than most of you reading this, seeing as how "she has a post-graduate scholarship awaiting her at the University of Texas, where she'll pursue a doctorate degree in transportation engineering." As an aside, is a transportation engineer someone who, among other things, figures out how long to get traffic lights for? Because if so, I would really appreciate it if Kristan could put her two-cents in about a change DC made to the timing of the lights on 16th and T and U. They used to be perfectly set as to allow you to make a left from my tiny street...now, not so much. Once she's done leading the lady Commies, maybe she could help me out. The Nashville City Paper staff also writes about the women's golf team here.

Nashville might join the throngs of cities going "smoke-free" according to a piece by Brad Schrade in today's Tennessean.

Finally, a piece about Jets behaving badly...this time though, it appears Justin Miller picked on the wrong woman.

Hoser of the Week thread to be posted later...and there are a lot of people to choose from this week.

Lock it Up looks to get back to .500 tonight against the Boon Dogglers...unfortunately for Lock it Up, I'm back in the saddle again.

(Photo 1 courtesy of VUCommodores.com, photo 2 credited to Jeanne Reasonover of the Tennessean)